


Happiness, Together

by gyuhan



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: (it's all fluff folks), Birthday Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Family Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-11-16 02:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18085982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyuhan/pseuds/gyuhan
Summary: Mingyu goes on an activity-filled trip for his birthday with the help of Jeonghan and their two daughters, who were the real masterminds behind the whole operation.





	Happiness, Together

**Author's Note:**

> It's Mingyu's birthday, so here's a fluff fic. I actually made [a thread](https://twitter.com/mingyupuppyism/status/1093889375560192001) a while ago on Twitter about what Mingyu and Jeonghan with two daughters would be like, and I grew very attached to the two little girls I made up, so I used them for this. Any time I write parenting fics from here on out they will for _sure_ involve Eunae and Eunbi. They're both around seven here.
> 
>  
> 
> follow me on: [my twitter](https://twitter.com/mingyupuppyism), [my tumblr](http://gyuldaengie.tumblr.com/), [the gyuhan twitter](https://twitter.com/forgyuhan/)

A smooth, warm pressure on the side of his face was enough for him to begin to rouse from the comfort of sleep. Mingyu's eyes moved beneath his eyelids and another kiss was dropped on his cheek, only this time it was accompanied by a voice.

"Honey," Jeonghan spoke, sounding nearly as soft as his lips felt pressing to Mingyu's temple, "will you get up, please?"

Deciding whether or not to answer the request wasn't hard. He let his lips part naturally and made sure to keep his breathing even, pretending to still be asleep. He wasn't about to start fake snoring, however - no matter how many times Jeonghan thought it important to tell him that he did, in fact, snore every night. He considered it an act of protest.

A hand drifted over his chest, rubbing circles at his sternum and rustling his shirt. A kiss found its way to his jaw this time.

Near enough to Mingyu's ear that his fingers twitched instinctively at the first brush of Jeonghan's breath there, Jeonghan whispered to him, "I know you're awake, Mingyu."

His breath didn't quite catch loud enough to give him away but his eyes squeezed shut tellingly, startled at getting caught so soon. He tried to gradually relax his face and keep the ruse going, but part of him already knew there was no hope. He was going to have to get up.

Jeonghan's hand traveled further north, his fingers pressing at Mingyu's collarbone over his shirt, and his kisses fell along Mingyu's neck this time. Right under his ear, Mingyu felt the tickle of Jeonghan's warm breath and couldn't stop his lips from twitching into a smile, a giggle bubbling up his throat. Jeonghan's lips pulled away.

"Happy birthday."

Mingyu blinked his eyes open and turned his head just enough to see Jeonghan, now up on his elbow to stare down at him, with stringy, damp hair and a dried smear of toothpaste on his chin. He lifted his hand to thumb the smear away in bits, letting his palm slip to curve around his husband's jaw once finished.

"Thank you, hyung."

Jeonghan's smile rose languidly, like his hand, which came to ruffle Mingyu's bangs away from his forehead.

"Your hair is a disaster," Jeonghan stated, fingers working through the dark strands to try and tame them.

"Don't bother with it," he said, grabbing Jeonghan's wrist to still him, "We'll just make it even messier in a minute," and then rolled Jeonghan over with him until he was perched above Jeonghan's legs, venturesome fingers already pulling at the sash that kept the robe Jeonghan was wearing drawn shut. He had it tied in a bow, which Mingyu thought was the perfect invitation to take Jeonghan as his birthday present.

Jeonghan laughed, voice clear and blissful, but shook his head.

"I have things I need to do right now, like breakfast, for one, and I'm not going to force the birthday boy to make it. I'll need the time to get it right that you'll only shorten with the..." Jeonghan searched around for the word, settling on, " _activities_ you want to do."

"I'm a man, not a boy," Mingyu reminded him with the intent to kiss him, already bending down for it, but Jeonghan's hands pushed hard enough at his chest to shove him off. The hand Mingyu had begun to slip up under the robe jerked back from Jeonghan's thigh.

"Yes, yes, we all know you are," Jeonghan agreed placatingly, shifting just out of Mingyu's reach when he tried to grab him around the hip. Jeonghan easily slid off the bed and pat down his rumpled robe, taking the time to pointedly meet Mingyu's eyes while retying the cloth sash tight around his waist. There was no bow this time. "But I need to go cook something _someone_ could eat in this house, and you need to go shower. I'll probably take an hour before I can scrounge up something that will taste decent enough to serve without the threat of food poisoning, so you can nap after you wash up."

The pout on Mingyu's face was more than enough to make Jeonghan roll his eyes up to the ceiling.

"Go shower," Jeonghan dictated, standing his ground despite Mingyu trying to do his best imitation of the world's saddest man. "I don't want to kiss you until you brush your teeth anyway."

Mingyu scowled at him with little to no effect. It was hard to scowl at someone you love, especially when they were about to make you breakfast for your birthday.

Jeonghan started toward the door without another word. Mingyu got out of bed and followed behind him at a respectable enough distance not to tempt him to reach forward and pull Jeonghan back against his chest.

"You know you're better at cooking than you tell everyone. I taught you. You can't be bad. And besides, I'd eat anything you gave me."

"Let's see you try to say that when you actually see what I fix for you," Jeonghan said darkly.

Mingyu's steps faltered. "Why did that sound like you're really going to try to poison me?"

"Oh, please." Jeonghan waved a hand as if to sweep Mingyu's foolish words right out of the air. "If I were going to poison you it would be on a holiday, not on your birthday."

Mingyu shuddered. "Even when you're joking you can still be scary."

"I was joking?" Jeonghan questioned, as if that were news to him.

Mingyu went to take a shower with a shake of his head and another rejected glance at Jeonghan's mouth.

「❦」

The second time Mingyu woke up, it was to an attack on all fronts.

Two tiny, knobby knees struck down upon his side - nearly rupturing his spleen and colon, he was half sure - and a sticky, even tinier hand grabbed at his ear on the opposite side. One second he was drifting away in a peaceful land of tranquility and the next he was gasping awake and half-certain he was being tortured by little monsters. 

He noticed Jeonghan's face first from across the room, the way he had cringed and his teeth were exposed from a harsh hiss of breath like he knew exactly what it felt like to have a toddler knee you in the stomach while another toddler tried to twist your ear clean off your head. Which was what was happening, Mingyu realized, as he registered the two faces of his twin daughters, Eunae and Eunbi, on both his left and his right.

"Sweetheart," Mingyu said to Eunae first, since he figured a ruptured spleen was more of a pressing matter than a missing ear, "you're on my stomach."

Eunae, with her rounded cheeks and wild, curly black hair - with bangs cut too short after she'd climbed her way up to the top shelf in the bathroom cabinet that they kept the scissors in and tried to cut her hair herself - stuck her bottom lip out and surveyed where her knees had impaled Mingyu's side. 

"Sorry," she said without sounding any bit remorseful. She didn't move off. "But you have to hurry and get up and blow out your candles or else you won't be able to grow up and then you'll get stuck exactly this old and no one could help you grow anymore no matter how many candles you got and-" Eunae abruptly stopped with a heavy exhale, her eyes wide and cheeks redder than they had ever been, having run out of breath.

Mingyu gave her a second to get her breath back and reminded her to space out her words. She nodded and kept going.

"And, anyway, you'll be stuck like this forever, daddy, and what will happen to us if father gets all grown up and you stay the same age? He'll have to drive you to school with us! And what if you steal all of my friends in class because you know how to make paper planes that fly really far? You can't do that! I'll get sad!"

Mingyu shifted his eyes toward Jeonghan to see if he could explain what was going on and, in turn, Jeonghan stared back at him and shrugged. Mingyu would have believed his facade of cluelessness if not for the way his nose scrunched in the middle like it always did when he was trying desperately not to laugh at something clever or funny (or often times both) he had done.

"Did your father-" Mingyu squinted at Jeonghan to show he wasn't being fooled, then glanced back toward Eunae "-tell you that I would stop growing if I didn't blow out candles on my birthday?"

"Yes!"

Mingyu sighed at Jeonghan's existence and the personality that his existence came with.

"Eunae, that was just one of his pranks again," he informed her.

She tilted her head like a puppy who had heard an unfamiliar sound for the first time and was trying to make sense of it by comparing it to other sounds it knew.

"Oh," she said. She took a moment, then started to shriek with laughter and clap her hands together. She fell back with the force of the hilarity in the joke Jeonghan convinced her of and flailed her feet up at the ceiling. Maybe she thought if she kicked hard enough at the air she could make her laughter last forever.

Mingyu smiled fondly and turned his head to the other side where Eunbi stood with her long, curly hair braided over her shoulder. Her hand was no longer prying at his ear, thankfully. Instead, one of her hands held a glass of orange juice and the other was tugging at the sheet on the bed while she impatiently waited for her turn at his attention.

When she noticed Mingyu staring she congratulated him in a quiet voice, "Happy birthday, dad."

"Is that for me?" he asked, gesturing toward the glass with his fingers.

She straightened her back, nodded enthusiastically, and her face brightened immediately. 

"Yep! Father let me make this for you. He told me it tastes _really_ good!"

Mingyu eyed the visible hunks of fleshy orange in the glass. Fast enough that neither of the girls could catch them, Mingyu sent a patient look to Jeonghan who met it with gentle eyes, a moment of understanding passing between them from raising two toddlers together. He looked back to the earnest, open expression on Eunbi's face and reached for the glass.

"May I take that from you? I really want to try it."

She nodded and nearly shouted, "Of course!" loud enough to burst an eardrum. Her pride at having made the juice all by herself was obvious enough, more than willing to let Mingyu try it and tell her how it tasted.

He backed up on the bed with his elbows, sat up against the pillows and the bed's headboard, and took the orange juice from her hands. Careful not to ingest the tiny bits of orange, Mingyu took a long sip that puckered his mouth at the tart taste.

"Mmm," he intoned and made sure to beam at Eunbi's expectant face. He took another drink. "It's really yummy! You should make more!"

Eunbi shook her head. She shut him down immediately by responding, "No way, it takes too long to make. This was just special juice. Birthday juice!"

Jeonghan wandered over and set a tray of food down on top of Mingyu's lap then, warming the top of his thighs under the heat of the food. There was a plate of tofu and rice cooked with black beans, a small vegetable omelet that seemed as if it'd been burnt just so around the edges, and a healthy layer of egg and cabbage bookended by two browned pieces of toast. He set his glass of juice down atop the tray and looked up at Jeonghan.

Jeonghan's cheeks were pink.

"I promise it's not poisoned," Jeonghan mumbled, then rubbed the back of his neck and gestured to the tray. 

Mingyu felt his mouth quirk and knew his eyes would be bright if Jeonghan stared into them. He was so cute.

"It looks well done. You did a really good job, hyung."

Jeonghan turned his head away to cough into his shoulder. "You should at least try it first before handing out compliments."

Mingyu did. He picked up a batch of rice with his chopsticks and set it atop the egg toast sandwich, then raised it to his mouth and took a large bite. The eggs ran, the cabbage crunched, and the rice nearly burnt the roof of his mouth. It was as delicious as he expected it to be.

He smiled, set the toast down, and grabbed for Jeonghan's hand to bring to his mouth. He kissed the back of it, not missing the gusty breath Jeonghan let out, and brushed his thumb along the inside of Jeonghan's palm.

"It's delicious. I swear it," he insisted. "I told you, I knew you would make something good."

"Because I learned from you?" Jeonghan prompted with a raised brow.

"No." He shook his head and fiddled with the wedding ring on Jeonghan's hand. "Because I knew you would practice and put your all into making it. You always do the things you set your mind out to do." Mingyu glanced at the girls, and added, "Isn't that right?"

Both of their daughters started to agree at the same time, voices overlapping, but the general intent wasn't lost. They both showered their father with all the compliments they always had ready for him.

Jeonghan's smile looked faintly watery. "Thanks," he murmured, eyes burning into Mingyu's face. Then he blinked and shook his head clear to set himself back on track. "But never mind that. You need to finish eating and then get dressed."

"Get dressed?" Mingyu questioned. He dropped Jeonghan's hand and reached for his food. "Are we going somewhere?"

"You daughters planned a trip for you today."

Mingyu took that to mean that they suggested places to go and Jeonghan either passed or vetoed them on the basis of things they could actually do.

"We made sure to think up a lot of fun place to go, daddy!" Eunae said, while she snuck a hand over his tray and stole some rice between her fingers.

Mingyu smiled at her and nodded, finishing his food up with the help of both daughters.

「❦」

The neighborhood park was still glistening with dew when Mingyu got out of the car.

"A park?" he asked to Jeonghan, unsnapping the safety belt of the car seat Eunae was sitting in. He plucked her up in his arms and then set her down on her feet, shutting the car door behind himself.

Jeonghan rounded the car with Eunbi in his arms and only put her down when she started to squirm and tried to reach for her sister. The second her shoes hit the pavement she reached for Eunae's hand and they took off running for the slide.

Jeonghan shouted, "Hey! Don't run!" hopelessly. He shook his head and swept his hand out to take hold of Mingyu's in his own, interlacing their fingers. "They picked it because they said you liked pushing them on the swings."

Mingyu laughed, watching Eunae start to jump for the monkey bars that were too high up for her to reach. He had to watch them carefully around those monkey bars, or Eunbi would tell Eunae that if she climbed on her back she could probably reach the bars. Eunbi was a little too crafty for her own safety.

"Are all the places we're going to actually just places they wanted to visit?" he guessed knowingly.

Jeonghan leaned into his side, their arms pressed together, and dipped his head to rest on Mingyu's shoulder, shifting until he felt comfortable.

"You'll like them."

He drew Jeonghan's hand up to place a dry kiss to the band of his ring, then pointed out, "You didn't deny it."

"You'll _like_ them."

They didn't say anything else for a few minutes. They stood there watching their daughters play in the tunnel slide, dirtying their hands, and Mingyu checked the time on his watch. Eight in the morning felt surprisingly warm.

「❦」

The door to the café pushed open with the light sound of a bell above it. Then, as the girls ripped their hands from Mingyu's grasp and started forward, the sound of dogs barking and claws clicking across the floor made its way to his ears.

"Puppies?" Mingyu's eyes grew wide.

With an encouraging shove of Jeonghan's hand at his lower back, he stepped further into the café and saw a small, furry pack of puppies of various sizes stumbling over themselves to swarm around Eunae and Eunbi, a few noticing him and Jeonghan and beginning to trot over.

Mingyu knelt down as fast as possible, opening his arms wide to accept the puppies that were headed toward him, and felt his heart burst as two golden retrievers tripped over each other and into his lap. He cooed, bringing his hands down to scoop one up into his arms like a baby.

Jeonghan chuckled and placed a hand in his hair, touselling it no worse than the puppies already had. "I'm going to go get us the coffee we need for the rest of the day and something sweet for the girls. Don't let the dogs slobber all over your clothes - no matter how cute they are," Jeonghan added. He went to go speak to the woman behind the counter and left Mingyu to smoosh furry cheeks between both of his palms.

Without Jeonghan there to keep him from throwing all his dignity away, Mingyu promptly let the puppies overwhelm him and tipped back on the floor. Like a wave crashing on shore with the tides, the puppies soon stomped over his chest to lick at his chin and, yes, slobber on his clothes. The delight lit up his face, his eyes shut and his head twisted away from the cold nose trying to sniff his ear.

He was too busy giggling to stop Eunbi from waddling over to tower above him and then drop a soft teacup poodle on his face, giving him a mouthful of fur and a smack in the mouth from one of the poodle's paws. After that, Mingyu forgot much else that was happening. At some point, he thought he heard Eunae trying to convince Eunbi to let her put a dog on her back.

The sound of his laughter and the squeals of enjoyment from his daughters filled his ears, along with the constant thumps of tails wapping at legs and arms that had become background noise. It was only the patient lilt of Jeonghan's voice that could be enough to break him out of his puppy-filled reverie.

"I thought I said not to let them get their drool on you?" Jeonghan's voice, directly behind him, made him sit up and whirl his head around.

The disappointment and a clear distaste for the state of Mingyu's clothes registered with devastating impact in Jeonghan's eyes. Mingyu flushed from the top of his head to his toes.

"Um, well, I..." he started, then fell off.

He threw a look to the girls, both of whom were sitting with poor posture in plush seats that surrounded a table set with two drinks with long curly straws, one without a curly straw, and a plate of muffins. Their hair was smoothly placed atop their heads and no sign of the carnage a horde of puppies would bring befell their clothes. They planned this, he just knew. Mingyu turned back to Jeonghan guiltily. One of the buttons on his shirt was definitely missing, torn away by a puppy claw.

"Oops?"

Jeonghan heaved a big - dramatic, really, considering it was Mingyu's birthday - sigh and gestured, a cup of coffee that was clearly Mingyu's in his hand that nearly spilled with the movement, to the table occupied by the twins.

"There's a table with treats and a coffee with your name on it. Why don't we go enjoy them and then you can go back to getting in touch with your animal side on the dirty floor, okay?" 

Mingyu used Jeonghan's offered elbow to pull himself up and followed after him, a trail of puppies following behind him as well and trying to trip him by chewing on his shoe strings.

「❦」

The girls, asleep in the back of the car, didn't stir once in the hour-long drive it took to get to Seoul Grand Park. The puppy café tired them out enough that Mingyu decided it best to carry them in their arms until they paid their way into the children's zoo. Jeonghan made it a point to softly wake Eunbi by kissing her forehead until she stirred. Mingyu gently set Eunae down on her feet and held her up until she blinked her eyes awake. 

They went through the children's zoo in under an hour. They bought cute frog shaped balloons they could tie around the kids' wrists first so they wouldn't get lost as easily, went to the petting zoo and fed deer and imitated sheep, and the girls learned from an instructor about animals native to Korea and the way everyone had to work to preserve their habitat. 

Then came the big zoo, which took another hour. By the time they got back to the car after that, Eunbi was convinced Jeonghan would buy her a red panda. So convinced, actually, that she began to talk about how Mingyu needed to build her and Eunae a bunk bed so the red panda they'd adopt could take her bed to sleep on.

Mingyu was trying to remind her what the instructor in the children's zoo said about how some animals can only be happy in the wild. It wasn't working out that well.

"What would she-" the red panda would be a girl, Eunbi insisted, and Mingyu felt compelled to allow at least that much fantasizing about a potential untamed pet "-eat at our house?" 

Eunae spoke up in Eunbi's stead, loudly telling Mingyu, "Your cooking, daddy!"

Jeonghan's fingers stroked the back of Mingyu's neck while he drove with one hand on the wheel, and they paused long enough so he could speak some much-needed reason to everyone in the car.

"Eunae, you know your dad can't cook the kind of food a panda would eat."

"But his food is really tasty," Eunae said with spirit, the determined furrow of her brow and stubborn puffing of her cheeks making it clear that she was ready to fight Jeonghan on this.

"It is," Jeonghan allowed peaceably, but continued on to say, "but red pandas eat plants and you don't want daddy to have to cook more vegetables, do you? It wouldn't be fair if only the panda had to eat them, would it? You both would have to as well."

Eunbi's lip stuck out sullenly, her shoulders dropping. Eunae mirrored her.

"Can we have a puppy instead?" Eunbi asked, her voice soft and sad like the one she always uses to manipulate Jeonghan into saying yes and indulging her.

"Ask your dad," Jeonghan smoothly deflected onto Mingyu.

Mingyu took a large gulp from his water bottle and hurriedly drew the girls' attention away from the conversation to the huge human-shaped inflatable flailing in front of a shop they were driving past. Jeonghan's hands resumed their massaging along Mingyu's nape, Mingyu relaxing back into his fingers. The girls got caught up playing a game Mingyu was sure they made up when they were only five and didn't mention anything more about potential pets that would tear up the house more than the twins already did themselves.

「❦」

After the hour it took to get from the zoo to Seoul Land, Mingyu was glad to stretch his legs again and so were the girls. He checked his watch to see it was already two in the afternoon. He let Jeonghan wander off to pay for the parking fee again, and the tickets for entry, and took both of the girls up by their hands and walked them to the bathroom to make sure there wouldn't be any accidents today.

By the time Jeonghan made it back to them they were already waiting. _Some_ of them impatiently. Eunae thought it best to kick pebbles around when she was unhappy about waiting.

Jeonghan laughed at the unhappy frown on Eunae's cutely rounded face and swept her up in his arms. 

"Come on, there's an aquarium inside and an amusement park we can ride all the big, scary rollercoasters at."

Eunae began to cheer, her tiny fists almost punching Jeonghan in the jaw as she raised them high over her head and waved them in the air. Her feet kicked out like she was riding a horse and Mingyu winced as he saw Jeonghan bow over some from one of her heels beating him in stomach. He reached out and stilled Eunae's feet so Jeonghan wouldn't suffer another blow. Jeonghan nodded at him and mouthed a silent 'thank you' that Mingyu smiled at.

They went through the aquarium first to keep up with the theme from the zoos they'd just been to. The baby sharks were the main attraction in the girls' eyes, because they got to stand over the rim of the long, curved glass and extend their hands out to touch the babies' backs. Mingyu made sure to wipe at their hands and give a generous pump of hand sanitizer in them afterward.

That is, they _had been_ the main attraction until the section with the stingrays came up. At that point, Mingyu and Jeonghan nearly lost track of them. The room was large enough to fit an oblong shaped tank with slightly green water and too many stingrays to count. Part of the floor dipped to allow for steps down into a tunnel beneath the tank, which Mingyu took one look at Jeonghan when he saw it and gestured to as if to say, _'You know I can't fit in that and someone will have to take Eunae and Eunbi through it.'_

Afterward, while Jeonghan complained to Mingyu about how his knees hurt from crawling after the toddlers in the tunnel, the girls let them pick them up and hold them while they put their hands out to brush along the backs of any of the stingrays that swam by. There was a station they had to go to and wash their hands at before and after, which led into a reptile area, and then out into the gift shop and the exit.

With four pairs of stingray shirts on all of their backs, Jeonghan and Eunae led the charge toward the amusement park. Mingyu, who held tightly onto Eunbi's hand, walked behind them and dragged his feet to try and make enough time to resolve himself to the rollercoasters he'd be coaxed into riding. Soon Eunbi was telling him that she promised she wouldn't let Eunae or Jeonghan make him get on any of the really high rollercoasters with a strong-minded - almost intimidatingly so - fire in her eyes. Mingyu bent down at her insistent tugging on his sleeve and their thumbs pressed together to seal their pinky promise.

She made a fist at him and said, "I'll protect you! And if they play a trick on you again to get you to ride one I'll grow big and strong just like you and make them apologize!"

Mingyu had to kneel down to hug her and bury his face in her hair or he might have cried.

「❦」

In a restaurant just a block away from Seoul Land, the girls had begun to recount all of their favorite animals they saw and all the best rides while coloring on an activity paper the waitress had handed Jeonghan helpfully when he asked for one.

Jeonghan, on the other hand, was turned toward Mingyu and smirking at him, his voice a low whisper.

"If I tell the waitress it's your birthday do you think she'll sing you a song?"

Mingyu ducked his head and shook his head furiously. "Don't. I don't want everyone to stare at us."

"Fatherhood has changed you so much," Jeonghan noted, voice gentle with introspection. "When we were younger you would have been the first one to tell her it was your birthday."

"And you would have already found cake to smear in my face."

Jeonghan licked his lips and shook his head. "You have cake waiting for you at home."

"With my name on it?"

Jeonghan hemmed, pursing his lips. "Not exactly. I couldn't fit your name after I wrote the 'happy birthday' part... I wrote the characters too big."

Mingyu choked on his drink and Jeonghan leaned over to pat his back for him, eyes both amused and exasperated at the same time.

"You made it?" Mingyu asked after wiping the spittle from his lips.

Jeonghan rolled his eyes. "Is it that shocking?"

"Well... yes."

"I made Eunae and Eunbi's birthday cake last year!"

"And, yet, that didn't stop you from trying to make another one. The inside was still wet in the middle. Do you remember that?" Mingyu shuddered, remembering the taste of powdery cake batter thickly coating his tongue as if it were only a day since he last tasted it. " _I_ remember that quite clearly since the middle parts were always my favorite."

Jeonghan had the decency to seem repentant at that. "I did say sorry for that. I didn't know the timer was broken."

"I have a serious trauma from that," he quipped, making sure to slide his hand over Jeonghan's thigh under the table so he didn't think he was sincerely upset still.

"I did have help this time, though. Junhui came over and read me the directions as I went."

Mingyu bit his lip and nodded, already back to smiling fondly. "So if there's anything wrong with the cake it's really Junhui's fault, right?"

"Of course. I would never make a mistake."

Mingyu's face nearly cracked apart as his grin widened enough to make his cheeks hurt. He looked to the twins sitting across from them, then at the unshifting ring on Jeonghan's finger despite Jeonghan's restless tapping at the table.

He leaned over, quickly kissed Jeonghan's cheek, and said into Jeonghan's ear, "No, you wouldn't."

「❦」

The two-hour-long ride to get back home was Mingyu's to take, having corralled Jeonghan into the passenger seat and insisted that he need the break after driving the family around all day. Jeonghan fell asleep with his hand threaded with Mingyu's over the center console and the noise in the back seat died down after Eunae ran out of pranks to tell Eunbi about and Eunbi ran out of stories she had read to retell to Eunae.

Mingyu was parked outside their house by ten at night and for a long while there he stayed: sat in the car with the keys still in the ignition, the radio turned down low enough it was nothing more than a murmur, and the heat on to keep everyone warm and happy.

He glanced back at the girls to watch them dream, their hands reaching out despite the distance between their car seats to hold onto each other, and then set his free hand across the top of the steering wheel and rested his temple upon the back of it, head angled to stare at Jeonghan's lax, care-free face; the faint lines along his nose and eyes from laughter, the slackened curves of his parted lips, the dusty curl of his eyelashes, his tangled hair. Still so angelic that the quiet moments would be disrupted by the catch of Mingyu's nervous breath after all these years.

He knew he had to wake his family up, but for the few moments he could make off with, he let himself appreciate everything he had in stillness.

「 **+** 」

"It's a promise," Jeonghan explained, nodding toward the slip of paper in Mingyu's hands. "Seungkwan signed it just so you would know he was serious. I don't think it's technically contractually binding, but if anything I could always just use the tape I have of him falling up the steps as blackmail to make sure he doesn't change his mind."

Plates of half-eaten cake were set off to the side on the coffee table and Mingyu sat on the living room couch, a large gift bag with colored wrapping paper sticking up from it atop his legs. A new camera rested carefully in the bag, a rose brooch pinned to his chest, and in his hands was the slip of paper that Seungkwan signed to let Mingyu know that he's volunteered to babysit Eunae and Eunbi at his house tomorrow for the duration of the day.

Mingyu looked from the piece of paper to Jeonghan's face. Jeonghan was stood between the couch and the coffee table, in the tempting and much too perfect distance to grab at him. His voice was light and cool as he spoke, and Mingyu knew what the constant adjusting of his sleeve cuffs meant well enough by now.

He set the gift bag aside, the piece of paper dropping into it, and stuck out his hands to slide them up Jeonghan's flanks, pulling him a step closer until Jeonghan had to steady himself with a hand on his shoulder. 

"Do you think he would be mad if we asked him to come to get them now?"

Jeonghan closed his eyes for a second at the tone in Mingyu's voice, shook his head to himself, and met Mingyu's gaze.

He jutted his chin out in the direction of the cake and said coyly, "Not even birthday boys get dessert twice in one night," before slipping out of Mingyu's grasp and heading to bed. As he went, he yawned loud enough that Mingyu was shocked it didn't shake the walls of the house and said over his shoulder, "Clean up the plates and come to bed." Firmly, as an addendum, he stated, "To _sleep_ , Mingyu."


End file.
